Police help with bid to remove gang fence

Police have agreed to share costs with Whanganui District Council in a bid to have a fence around the local Hells Angels gang headquarters removed.

The council and police will split the costs 50/50 in an application to Whanganui District Court.

Mayor Michael Laws said he had spoken today to Central Districts regional commander Superintendent Russell Gibson, and they agreed that the costs of a legal application "are to be split and are unlikely to be expensive".

"We both employ in-house legal counsel and the new legislation is relatively precise," Mr Laws said.

"It is not a large sum of money involved to lodge an application. Certainly less than $5000 in total and our cost is only half that."

Mr Laws said that the council's "no tolerance" policy with gangs "means that this issue will proceed sooner rather than later. The council's lawyer will talk to police counsel within the next week".

On Tuesday the council voted 8-5 to partner police in applying to the district court for an order to remove the two-metre high fence in Kaikokopu Road.

Inspector Duncan MacLeod, of Whanganui police, told the council the fence stopped police from having ready access to the headquarters in executing search warrants and chasing fleeing offenders, who had evaded police by entering the gang compound.

But councillor Rob Vinsen told NZPA he had surveyed the property's neighbours, many of whom were elderly, and they did not want the fence taken down because it would lessen their privacy.

He expected the application would not succeed in court, as the fence had been built with council consent in the 1980s.

- NZPA